1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to display stands in general, and more particularly to display towers or stacks capable of displaying more than one kind of food goods or items.
2. Description of the Related Art
There are already known various constructions of display arrangements, among them such that are commonly referred to as display towers, racks or stacks. Devices of this kind are usually used as stand-alone, but not permanent, display structures in grocery stores or other retail establishments, ordinarily being placed into the aisles present between the permanent shelf or similar structures, and are made of a material, such as corrugated board or cardboard, that is much less sturdy (and hence much less expensive) than the materials used for the construction of such permanent structures. Moreover, such devices often are not even unitary; rather, each of them consists of a number of interconnected discrete components that are, for instance, superimposed on one another.
In one known implementation of this approach to the displaying of items being offered for purchase, each of a plurality of display components is provided with one type of locking formation (i.e., either male or protruding or female and receding) at, say, its bottom, and the other type of locking formation at corresponding zones of its top so that, when one such component is stacked on top of another, such formations get into a complementary relationship with respect to one another (i.e., the male protrusions enter and substantially fill the female recesses) and henceforth hold the two components in their thus established stacked or superimposed relationship even if the display stand is exposed to that kind of forces (bumps or the like) that are to be expected in a crowded retail establishment.
Arrangements of this type perform reasonably well and have even enjoyed a modicum of success when only one type of an item was to be displayed in the particular arrangement. However, there are situations where it is desired to display two or more kinds of items, especially food, that are usually somehow intrinsically related to one another, for example, by being eaten together, in close physical proximity to one another. Good examples of such items are tortilla chips and salsa sauce: they go well with one another and are often purchased at the same time.
Hence, to save the customers bent on purchasing such items the trip and the time required for looking them up in different aisles of the retail establishment (and/or the possible embarrassment of coming back from a shopping trip with one and not the other of them), it has been previously proposed to co-locate the salsa sauce containers or the like with the tortilla chip or similar packages. One way of doing that was to use a separate holding receptacle for such containers, and attach that separate receptacle to (for instance, hang it on) the display rack or stack accommodating the chip bags.
It will be appreciated, though, that this was not an ideal solution; as a matter of fact, it left much to be desired, particularly because the attachment of the separate receptacle to the rack, given the very nature of these structures, could not possibly have been strong and permanent enough to be able to withstand all the jostling to which it may be subjected in a busy retail establishment. Given the fragile nature of the salsa containers or the like, dissociation of the receptacle containing them from the display stand or rack could result not only in embarrassment to the person knocking it off but also rather considerable damage and mess to be cleaned by the store personnel. This, of course, is highly undesirable.